


Ugly, Yellow Toddler

by ScoffingAtGravity



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Eleanor Is A Good Bro, Friendship Admissions, Gen, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Michael actually cares about these humans and a not robot, My First Work in This Fandom, Takes place after Shawn's visit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 22:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12804033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScoffingAtGravity/pseuds/ScoffingAtGravity
Summary: After Shawn's surprise visit, everyone's rattled, but soon eases back into normalcy. Everyone except Michael. Eleanor wants to know what's going on.





	Ugly, Yellow Toddler

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing any Good Place fic, and it's actually the first proper work I've written in a while. The idea that Michael kept the Minion stuck with me, and I wanted to write something about that, so here it is.
> 
> Edit: I fixed the typos pointed out to me by my friend.

Shawn’s surprise inspection had left Team Cockroach rattled, but none more so than Michael. He still attended ethics lessons and played his part around the neighborhood, yet the immortal being had become more subdued. Wrapped up in their own relief at the passed threat, it took a while for someone to notice the change.

“Hey, Chidi, have you noticed something,” she paused a moment, searching for the right word, “different about Michael lately?”

Chidi looked up from the essay in front of him and set his pen down. “Well, he’s a bit more quiet and still than usual, but, considering all that’s happened, it makes sense. We were almost caught, which means death for him, so he’s most likely confronting that reality again. Thankfully, it’s not a repeat of the previous time.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Yeah, Vicky would get suspicious if he had another mid-eternity crisis.” Still, something felt off to her, and she had to ask. “It doesn’t seem like maybe there’s something else going on, too?”

The moral philosopher’s head cocked to the side. “Like what?”

“I don’t know.” A huff escaped her lips as she sat down on the couch. “It’s like he’s distancing himself, or something.”

Chidi rounded the table and sat next to Eleanor. “Do you think he’s having doubts about being on our side?”

She let out a groan and leaned back. “No, it’s not that.”

“Have you thought of maybe just asking Michael?” 

An incredulous eyebrow rose. “Given how quickly he leaves lessons, or we’re surrounded by demons?”

“…I see your point. Still, you could try his office?”

“That’s-that’s actually a good idea.” She pushed off of the couch.

He grinned up at her. “I’m known to have them every once in a while.”

Fondly rolling her eyes, Eleanor walked over to the door. “Yeah, yeah, that’s why you’re the professor.”

“I’m a professor because of years of intensive study, and-.”

She leaned against the door. “Just take the compliment, bro.”

The corners of Chidi’s mouth twitched upward. “Yes, I’m a professor solely because of my occasional good ideas.”

“I forkin’ knew it!”

He laughed. “Let me know how things go with Michael?”

“I will.”

Eleanor’s journey to Michael’s office faced no interruptions and earned her no suspicious glances from the few demons spread about. Despite being used to faking it, she couldn’t help but relax once she entered the building and was shielded from prying eyes.

Her feet led her down the familiar path to the office, and she kept her ears tuned for the presence of any non-Michael entities. Silence met her waiting ears, and she briefly wondered if Michael was even around. As she moved to open the door, a dull thud answered the question for her. She stepped into the room and shut it behind her.

“Uh, what’s all that, and what’s with the Minion plushie?” she blurted out, staring in fascination past Michael’s turned back at the display case.

Michael’s body jolted a fraction of an inch as he turned to face his unexpected guest. “Eleanor,” he greeted, “what brings you here? Is it Vicky? I wasn’t aware of any further torture attempts today.”

Grinning, Eleanor leaned against the closed door. “Nope” she said, popping the ‘p’, “and you’re deflecting.” She strode over to his side and took a closer look at the items inside. “Why do you have all this stuff?”

Michael’s hands flexed at his sides a moment before he balled them into fists and crossed his arms. “When I came up with the plan for this neighborhood, I studied humanity a little more closely than my colleagues. I looked for the little things humans used to torture themselves with and each other. Take this pink eraser: it erases errors, but leaves lots of pink debris behind, and, if used too roughly, it tears the paper.”

Eleanor groaned. “Ugh, I hated it when that happened!”

“Exactly!” Michael grinned. “I kept them as reminders and a sort of encouragement that my plan could succeed. I also worked them into my cover as the benevolent, human-loving architect.”

Eleanor’s eyes roamed over the collection. “Okay, I see your point about some of these, but the Minion seems a pretty specific choice. I know they were all over the place, and wow were those memes annoying, like you couldn’t go on Facebook without seeing their bug-eyed, little faces with unrelated captions, like what was that about, and then they get their own movie? What?” She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Question is, why Minions, and not Jar Jar Binks or something?”

Sighing, Michael relaxed his arms and rubbed the side of his face. “That one…wasn’t actually a reminder-well, not of human’s self torture, I mean.”

Her face scrunched up in confusion. “Then what’s it a reminder of? Are you secretly a Minions fan? Will I find, like, a Minion onesie somewhere?” Wide, blue eyes darted around the room in curiosity.

“No! I’m not a Minons fan, and I don’t own a onesie.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I’m an immortal being, not a adolescent!”

“Well, then, why the plushie?”

Words died in the immortal being’s throat. She just had to ask. His instincts screamed at him to lie his way out of it and avoid an awkward conversation, but another voice-Chidi’s-chided him for considering lying. A deeper, hidden part of himself sided with the egghead and reminded him of recent events. It only took a small error, and everything was over. Something in him twisted at the thought. “It’s a, uh, long story.” His lips quirked in a wry smirk.

Eleanor spread her arms in invitation. “I’ve got time.”

“Of course you do,” he muttered, a stubborn grin peeking through. He gestured towards the chairs by his desk. “Get comfortable then. No one should be coming by for the rest of today. Vicky’s brainstorming with her inner circle.” His eyes rolled as he walked around his desk and sat down.

The human followed his suggestion. Settling into her seat, she kicked her feet up on his desk. “Okay, I’m comfy.”

An eyebrow lifted. “I can see that.” Twin grins appeared, and Michael felt his nerves settle slightly. “The story goes back to my first attempt. It was all the usual stuff: ruined party, chaos sequence, further clues suggesting you ruining the neighborhood, etcetera. In that attempt, you agreed to assist me in finding the problem in the neighborhood.”

“Wait, I agreed to that? Why the fork would I do that?”

“I asked you while Tahani was there.”

“…makes sense. Proceed.”

“We continued leaving clues you were causing the issues, so you’d get more and more stressed about being found out. There was this whole sinkhole situation, and, after closing it up, I told you to meet me the next day to investigate. I played the part of an architect at the end of his rope. I really-,” he laughed, “I really sold the burnout routine. You had the idea to help me solve the problem by not working on it.”

“Keeping my promise, but still protecting myself. Smart.”

“Correct. You took me out for fun activities, like karaoke and bowling. We spent the whole day like that.”

“Sounds about right, but how does the Minion fit in?” Eleanor moved her legs off the desk, so she could lean forward.

“One of the places you took me was an arcade. There was one of those claw machines with toy prizes that are near impossible to grab. It took a while, but I managed to get a hold of it.”

Eleanor’s head tilted. “So, it’s like a pride thing?”

“No, not exactly.” Michael exhaled through his nose and steeled himself for the admission. He looked away from the human’s expectant face. “Actually having fun wasn’t part of the plan…and I maybe didn’t hate that you called me ‘friend’ after.”

That…wasn’t what Eleanor expected. Her face slackened in surprise as she studied the not-demon tugging at the cuffs of his suit jacket in discomfort. “You liked spending time with me?”

His right shoulder jerked up in a half shrug. “You’re the human most like me, so your company wasn’t completely unbearable.”

She smirked. “Well, when you’re not torturing us, you’re not so unbearable yourself.”

A chuckle reverberated in his throat, and he finally reestablished eye contact. “So the feeling is mutual then.”

“Seems so.” They exchanged smiles. “Is there more to this story I should know about?”

Michael thought a moment. The story about Chidi accidentally rebooting Janet could wait another time. “No, not really. That was it.” His eyes looked over Eleanor curiously. “Now that that explanation’s out of the way, did you have a particular reason in coming here?”

Eleanor blew a sigh out of her nose. He’d been honest with her. The least she could do was return the favor. “I was worried.”

Michael tilted his head. “About what? Did Jason try molotoving Vicky’s house again?”

“No, no! Nothing like that. It’s just…after Shawn’s visit, you’ve been distant. I figured it was just the crash after a high tense situation, and that it’d blow over soon enough, but it’s been a week.”

He blinked. “You were concerned for me?”

Eleanor squirmed a bit in her seat. “I was,” she confirmed. “So, talk to me, bud. What’s up? Is this about confronting the concept of death again, or something else?”

“Well, I’d be lying if I said it I hadn’t thought about the very real consequences of Shawn discovering what’s going on, but that’s not all of it…it’s not even most of it.” An almost pained look came across his face.

Eleanor reached across the desk and rested a hand on his forearm. “Hey, whatever it is, you can talk to me. I’m here for you.”

His jaw worked a moment as he struggled to put it into words. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about what being caught would mean for Janet, and the rest of you. I’d be gone, who knows what they’d do to Janet, and you four would be stuck in the real Bad Place. The Derek situation made me realize how important Janet had become to me, and Shawn’s arrival made me confront some other truths.”

“You care about us.”

It wasn’t a question, but he answered it all the same. “I still don’t quite understand it, but yes. I do.” His eyes dropped down to the wooden surface of the desk.

A smile broke out on Eleanor’s face. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

He raised his eyes to meet her gaze. “Thank you.”

“No problem, bud.” She stretched and stood. “I should get back to Chidi. He’s probably done grading our essays by now, and I want to see what I got.”

Rising from his seat, he leaned against the side of his desk and grinned. “Still trying to become the class velociraptor?”

“Shut up,” Eleanor huffed, trying to conceal the twitching of her mouth without much success. 

Michael raised his hands up in mock surrender. “My apologies. Good luck with your essay results, Eleanor.”

“Thank you, Michael I’m sure you did well…as long as you didn’t devolve into a rant about the French again.” She quickly ducked out of his office and smiled at the laughter following her. They would be okay. She knew it. Somehow, their crazy plan would work.


End file.
